Chapter Four

W orking at Gerry’s had good and bad days, but today sucked so much. Gerry’s was a good place to work, and the owner treated his staff fairly. Henry had worked in places where the staff had been treated like shit, but Gerry was okay.

It was a standard market, with plenty of aisles carrying everything a person would need and plenty of cameras to watch those people. The number of thefts had slowly been increasing, so now they had a full security system installed and Gerry was considering staff for the door.

Today wasn’t a good day, and it didn’t help that Henry still felt like shit. One minute he was hot and sweaty, then he was cold and clammy. Like his body couldn’t decide how it wanted to feel and kept changing its mind.

He couldn’t hide in the back, either. As supervisor, he would normally be in the office working, but one of the staff had been in a traffic accident and was off, so he was out front working the cash register. Working in a supermarket had its perks, but today wasn’t one of them.

The number of rude people he’d served was in double figures. Why couldn’t people say please and thank you? Had the words been wiped from their vocabulary? And the fight he had to break up over a package of beef jerky had him shaking his head. Who cared who saw it first? It was whoever picked it up first that had the right to the product.

He couldn’t wait to go home and get into bed. Three long days he’d felt like this, and he was beginning to be concerned. Maybe the guy who was allergic to condoms had actually given him something. The tests had all come back negative, but he wasn’t so sure they’d been accurate. If he still felt this way by the time the weekend arrived, he’d be going back and redoing them all again.

His stomach clenched, and he smiled at the person in front of him, ignoring the pain. Breathing shallowly, he bagged the groceries and took the customer’s cash, handing over their change. Once the customer was gone, Henry spotted Stan and went over to him.

“I need to finish some paperwork. If it gets busy again, come and get me.”

Stan nodded. “Will do, boss.”

Henry helped a customer out, then another store assistant before he managed to make it to his office. Once inside, he collapsed into his chair and grunted in pain. Rubbing his stomach, he picked up his bottle of water and finished what was inside.

It did little to quench his thirst. A thirst he’d had for days now. Probably something to do with that guy. Everything was that guy’s fault. Nothing had felt right since they’d fucked. His body was constantly in pain and Henry was beginning to become worried. Or more worried than he already was.

Only a few more hours to go, then he could head home and do nothing but sleep and hope—again—that he’d feel better when he woke up, but he had a feeling this wasn’t going away. Whatever it was. The aches and pains and on off cramps needed to leave asap.

“Henry. Trouble.”

Sighing, Henry stood, then paused when his legs trembled like all the strength had been drained from them. Once he felt steady, he went onto the shop floor and sighed. Two women arguing over cereal. Cereal. Amanda was calmly telling them they had more stock out back and she would get what they needed, but at this point nothing was getting through. The two women were screaming at each other, hurling insults and ignoring Amanda.

Henry knew things would escalate to a physical fight if he didn’t intervene, but he had to make sure there was space between them and the women. He’d had staff accused of assault for breaking up a fight and he couldn’t risk that happening again.

Walking over, Henry placed himself in front of Amanda. “How can I help?” he asked and braced himself.

“That fucking bitch stole my cereal! I had my fucking hand on it and she took it right out of it,” the young blue-haired woman shouted.

The other woman screamed, “No you didn’t you lying piece of shit!”

“What did you call me? Fucking ugly cow.”

Oh, it was going downhill fast and Henry wanted to be anywhere but there. “Less of the name calling, please. As Amanda has said, we have more stock out back, and if you could give us a minute, we’ll get it for you. Amanda, if you could.”

Amanda nodded and practically ran from the floor, leaving Henry and now Stan trying to deescalate the situation. He should have sent Stan, so at least one woman was here. He didn’t want them to feel like they were being ganged up on by men.

“I’ll take this one, then, and you can wait. I had my hand on it first.” And it went downhill from there.

Blue-haired woman went to walk away with the cereal box but only managed two steps before the other woman snatched the box from her hand. Blue hair went nuts and jumped on the back of the other woman, trying to punch her in the face and take the box back.

Henry immediately reacted, trying to separate the two women as Stan shook his head and grabbed the cereal box. Neither woman noticed the box was now gone. Both were too busy trying to hit the other person. Henry forced his body between them and tried to move them apart, but took a slap to the face.

“Get out of the fucking way while I deck this bitch,” blue hair screamed.

The other women screamed in return and attempted to jump over Henry, arms and legs flailing. Security miraculously appeared and helped to separate the two women, who were still trading insults and trying to hit one another. One poor man ended up being kneed in the balls and dropping to the floor. Henry winced in sympathy, knowing how much a blow there hurt.

The remaining security guard had a look of resignation on his face as he stood between the two women, who continued to scream insults at each other. Once they’d calmed down, which took a long time, Henry stood, hands on his hips as he shook his head. “Out. You can come back when you’ve both calmed down.”

That set them both off again, but this time he was having insults shouted at him. The security guard tried to usher them out but all it did was inflame the situation more. Blue hair grabbed a jar of jam and threw it at Henry, who ducked as it sailed past his head.

Pointing at her, he said, “Banned. Get her face from CCTV and put it on the wall of customers who can no longer enter this store.”

“You fucking bastard. I’ll fucking kill you.” She reached into her bag and tried pulling something out. Henry felt his stomach drop, his heart rate shooting up.

“Cops are here!” Stan shouted.

The woman screamed and launched herself at Henry, still tugging at something in her bag. The gun came out and as she swung to point it at Henry, an officer shouted, “Drop the gun!”

She didn’t and a second later she was on the floor convulsing from the taser shot she’d taken to her back. Henry stepped back, panting harshly, a cold sweat covering his skin. All this over a box of fucking cereal? What the fuck was going on in the country that someone would shoot another human being over a fucking box of cereal?

He needed to change jobs, and soon. He was tired of dealing with people like this. Every single day something else happened that had Henry shaking his head in confusion at the state of the country. When had things deteriorated to this level?

It took far longer than Henry had wanted to get the shop back in order once the police had arrested the woman, taken statements, and done whatever else it was they needed to do. Henry had stopped paying attention. His body was on a downward spiral and he needed to get home. At least he only had an hour to go before the end of his shift. One long hour.

Once he made it home, he collapsed fully dressed on his bed and closed his eyes. Fuck, he felt like he’d been hit by a car, reversed over, then hit again. He needed to take some pain meds, but that meant moving and he didn’t want to move because of the pain, but he was already in pain so he needed the meds. Where was some telekinesis when you needed it?

“Shit,” he mumbled as he rolled into a sitting position. Wincing, he stood and stopped, waiting for his body to adjust and for the waves of pain to dissipate. He stumbled to the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of pain meds. Pausing, he swallowed hard. Those few steps had wiped all the energy from his body.

Taking a couple of tablets, he managed to make it back to bed and slowly stripped, then slid under the covers. Fuck, he felt like shit. Closing his eyes, he grimaced when his stomach rolled. He wasn’t going to throw up. Not when he’d just taken the tablets.

Rolling onto his left side, Henry closed his eyes and waited for his stomach to settle. God, when would he feel better? For days now, he’d been feeling ill. Ever since him. If he ever saw him again, he was going to kick the shit out of him.

After they’d had sex. Maybe.

The guy might have forgotten to glove up, but he had certainly made Henry see stars when he’d come. It had been a long time since a man had made him feel that good, but a condom was a must, and was he giving serious consideration to having sex with Mr. ‘I’m allergic to condoms’ again? Where was his head at? Sure, the guy could fuck, but without a condom?

Henry groaned as sweat broke out over his skin and his stomach somersaulted. He felt like death warmed up. The cold sweat, the shivers, the muscle cramps. He breathed through his mouth until his stomach settled. It couldn’t be something he’d eaten because he’d eaten so little in the last couple of days that there was nothing in his stomach. Yet, his stomach was acting like it had to get rid of what he’d had to eat.

Being ill plain old sucked ass.

Once his stomach settled—finally—Henry sighed. Sleep. What he needed was sleep and to wake up in a much better position than he was then. He couldn’t go through another day at work feeling like absolute shit. Not with the customers they had to deal with. He needed his wits and patience to get through the day.

Sighing softly, Henry relaxed as much as he could. Sleep. He needed to sleep.